


Running on Empty

by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Angst, Drinking, Guilt, Internalized Homophobia, Multi, Parental Issues, Running away from your problems, Shame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9116638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: Of course, he knows how this deal ends.  There is no god in the heavens to make a decision for him.  There is only this.  A run down hotel room.  A broken, useless coward of a man—all misplaced anger, and fear, and regret…  It’s just him, and himself, still running away from uncomfortable truths, just as he always has—and hasn’t that always been the problem?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this was just too sad to post on tumblr, so I'm putting it here. I hurt myself writing this. It's a lot of angst, with no resolution, probably brought on by continuously absorbing an excess of Season 4 promo materials, engaging in too much conjecture, and then getting myself all worked up into a sad. 
> 
> This is dark-ish from an emotional standpoint, and I don't think it's really my usual style, either. Reminds me more of the stuff I used to write in my twenties when I was a closeted, emotional wreck myself. It's loose, and vague, and sort of a prose tone-poem of difficult emotion. 
> 
> They'll have their happy ending, but you'll not find it in this story.
> 
> Takes place sometime in Season 4, I guess. 
> 
> Mary is dead.
> 
> This isn't even close to being betaed. I just had to get it out.

John’s phone had buzzed off-and-on for three days, he finally powered it off.He knows who it is.He can’t look.

The hotel is cheap.  The mattress hard and lumpy on the edges, sunken and a mess of exposed springs in the middle.  He hasn’t slept a wink.  Seems appropriate.  Seems a little like maybe he deserves it.  His back aches.  His head pounds.  His eyes burn from all the tears he’s cried in the last week.  And now he’s here, alone, when he should be at the flat, with his daughter, doing what he knows is his responsibility (his honour) to do.

_(Not like mum.  Never like mum…)_

Instead this.

The door to the room next door opens.  The walls are paper thin, and he can hear the woman’s giggle so clear it’s like she’s in the room with him.  The man’s voice is low enough it only comes across like a rumble through the walls, but the tone is unmistakable.  When the moans start, followed by the knock-knock of the headboard on the wall behind his head, he swings his legs over the edge of the bed, flips on the lamp, and drags his hands wearily across his face before getting to his feet.  He finds the meagre options on offer at the room’s dry bar, and cracks open three or four minis of something strong, knocking them back in quick succession before he can think much about it.

( _this family has a problem with drinking, you know that Johnny, not too much, not when you feel you need it..._ )

The couple next door are putting on quite the show.  It should be a problem, but he feels nothing, not even the slightest stir, and this after months of frankly ridiculous and unforgivable levels of adolescent-like desire. 

_(Just like mum…)_

It surprises him, though he doesn’t know why it should.  He wonders if he’ll ever feel anything again.

He stares at his phone—silent, still, face down on the night stand.

His hand is trembling when he finally picks it up, thumbs it to life, a long list of notifications lighting up his lock screen the minute it powers up.

He erases the ones that don’t matter any more.  The ones from an interlude that seems like some sort of brief, strange dream in the midst of an even weirder reality. 

There is one from Greg of all people: “What’s going on?”

From Molly: “Done.”

And then Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock….

On and on.

He sets the phone down again.

The people next door have finished with a cacophony of theatrical cries and shouts.The room is silent, except for the hum of the central heat.He crawls back into bed, but leaves the light on.He stares at his phone.If it buzzes again, he’ll look.It’s a promise.a sort of deal with the universe.

Of course, he knows how this deal ends.  There is no god in the heavens to make a decision for him.  There is only this.  A run down hotel room.  A broken, useless coward of a man—all misplaced anger, and fear, and regret…  It’s just him, and himself, still running away from uncomfortable truths, just as he always has—and hasn’t that always been the problem?

He feels sick.  He shouldn’t have drank so quickly on an empty stomach.

The phone doesn’t buzz.

He goes to the loo, sits on the cracked, cold tile, and presses his cheek to the toilet seat.  He cries.  He sobs, and chokes, and swears at no one and nothing in particular, and doesn’t know why, and then he vomits cheap whiskey and bile into the stained toilet bowl, and crawls back to bed.

The phone is silent.

It’s just waiting.

Decide.

There are no signs in the sky or subtle synchronicities.

There is only his decision.

He leans over, clicks off the light, lays in the dark, and listens to the cars racing by, running away in cloak of darkness ( _like you_ ), or maybe running to something, driving all night to get there in time? 

He’s tired.  He’s been running all his fucking life, and he’s so damn tired.

He picks up the phone.  He thumbs it to life.  He reads.

 

S: You won’t answer this, will you?

S: It doesn’t have to be like this.

S: Come home.

 

S: You’re worrying Mrs. Hudson.

S: Fine!Do what you want.

 

S: Rosie has a cold—I think.

 

S: John?

 

S: Tell me you’re alright, and to piss off.I will. 

 

S: Three days is a long time.They are going to look. 

S: Just

S: Don’t be dead.

 

S: John, I should have done things differently.This is my fault.I see that. 

S: Blame me, if you need to.I deserve it.Just come home.

 

Enough.

The reply is quick, and to the point:

J: You don’t deserve that.Maybe it was your fault.Maybe it was hers.I don’t know.This is about me.Not that.I’m fine.Please stop texting me.

 

The response is immediate (Jesus was he just waiting by his phone?):

S: John?!

 

Something twists hard, and tight, and excruciating in the centre of John’s chest.He’s going to cry again, and he doesn’t want to. 

Like tearing off a bandage.  Finish it.

J: Piss off.

 

1143 seconds pass.John counts every one.

 

S: Are you alright?

 

John is crying now ( _with relief, with longing, with sheer, raw missing_ ), and hates it.It’s all he does since it happened.

 

J: I don’t know.

 

And Christ, but that was honest.

 

S: Are you hurt?

 

J: Everything hurts.

 

S: Where are you?  I’ll come and find you.

 

J: I’m safe.  Leave me alone.

 

S: I’m sorry, John.

 

J: So am I. 

J: Good-bye, Sherlock.

 

He shuts the phone off before he loses his nerve.

Everything is wrong.

But then everything has always been wrong.  Sometimes John thinks he was born wrong.  And for 15 months a few years ago he had felt right, or as close to it as he’d ever gotten, and then there was a fall, and blood, and more blood, and more, all of it his fault, always his fault, on his hands, and NO!  It’s enough.  They’re safer without him.

( _or is it you who’s safer?_ )

No.

It’s the right thing to do.

It’s the right thing to do.


End file.
